Description

This splendid volume provides an interdisciplinary overview of the Middle East from age-old enmities to discussions of current political concerns. In forty-four essays, an international assemblage of scholars, politicians, and experts address the problems of Palestine and Israel; Iran, Syria and Iraq; Turkey; and the Kurdish regions. Concerned with questions of national, religious, or ethnic identification, the authors touch on topics from the definition of the "Middle East", the Salman Rushdie fatwa, the constancy of the Mosque as an institution, mass murders in Iraq, the role of women, the crises affecting the Assyrian Chaldean-Syriacs, torture in Iran, and the peace process. Comprehensive chapters chart the politics, ethnicity, and history of Turkey.show more

Table of contents

Preface; Introduction and General Survey: National or Religious Identification seen in a Local and Global Perspective; Universal Human Rights, Particular Cultural Rights and Peaceful Co-existence. Models for Conflicts and their Solution in the Middle East; The New Map of the Middle East; Rushdie, Fundamentalism and Politics; The Mosque and Fear of Fundamentalism; History as Mythos. On the Question of Religious Language and Historiography in Middle Eastern Politics; The Muslim Woman -- A Battlefield; The Middle East: The Significance of Oil in the Middle East and North Africa; To Get More Out of Less. Managing the Water Resources for Sustained Agricultural Production; The Challenge and Predicament of Human Rights Violations in the Mediterranean Context; Israel - Palestine: Human Rights and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict; Created by the Enemy - Enemy Images as Nation Builders in Israel; Religion - Legitimising the National Dream; Two Movements of National Liberation - in Conflict or Peace Making?; The Middle East Between Agony and Progress Building a New Palestine; The Transformation of Palestinian Civil Society and Its Role in Developing Democratic Trends in the West Bank and Gaza Strip; The Peace Process in the Middle East - Explanations and Future Prospects; Israel and the Peace Process; Iran -- Syria -- Iraq: Iranian Fundamentalism -- A Threat to the World; The Significance of Religion - Islam and Modernity; The Alawites' Rise to Power in Syria; Nationalism and Geo-Political Circumstances - The Kurdish Problem as an Example; The Politics of Genocide From Iraqi Counter-Insurgency to Ethnic Cleansing of Kurdish Areas; Turkey: An Historical Account of Identity Formation in Turkey -- The Impact of Nomadism; The Assyrian Community in Turkey; The Construction of the Turkish Republic and Citizenship; Turkey and the Middle East; Republican Citizenship Facing the Challenge of Identity; An Imaginative Approach to the Problem of Turkey's Security in the 21st Century; The Reality of Turkey; Political Islam -- An Anomaly of Liberal Democracy?; Turkish Media After the 1980s; Turkey in a State of Fear; Water Disputes and Ethnic Conflicts in the Middle East - The Case of the Kurds; Alevis in Turkey and Europe; The Reconstitution of History and Continuous History; The Alevis and Politics in Turkey; The Kurdish Question: The Kurdish Question -- its History and Present Situation; The Kurdish Demographic Revolution and its Socio-Political Implications; Thoughts on the State and Kurdish Identity in Turkey; The Kurdish Question on the Basis of the North-South Contradiction; The Separation of the Kurdish People and Their National Struggle; The Perspectives of the Kurdish Movement in Light of the Oil Strategies of the 21st Century; Societal Security: A Solution to the Kurdish Problems?; Index.show more